


Turning

by mangohaz



Category: A Star is Born (2018)
Genre: Ally mourns, F/M, He’s still dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 02:47:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16420913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangohaz/pseuds/mangohaz
Summary: Ally copes as a year goes by





	Turning

The world kept turning, which she knew would happen.

 

That's what happened when her Mother drunk herself into a maddened stupor and flung herself and her husband’s favourite Cadillac Escalade into LA’s concrete river. She had kept getting homework sent to the house, her friends had kept bitching about each other on MSN, her Dad had bought another car and carried on driving. While Ally had sat in the middle of it all, in the same stilled shock that had gripped her like a vice from the moment the words ‘Mom’s died’ had fallen from her Father’s mouth. And she’d stayed that way, for a woman she could hardly say she  _ liked _ very much for almost a year, trapped repeating one moment from the moment she rose to the moment she slept, through four seasons. 

 

So sitting in her Father’s living room once more, staring blankly at the old wallpaper that refused to peel, she began to wonder how long  _ this  _ could last. She’d been young the last time, her brain not yet fully molded and therefore malleable enough to leave behind the grief even after such an extended period, she was older now. Not so easily changed or stirred and this time she had not only words but an image to repeat in her mind until all she could do was sob, sob until her head hurt so much she was unable to focus on the image of Charlie crying at their garage door, hidden behind the Ford truck with the still-warm engine, to the small view into the garage she had from where she stood, trying to coax Charlie into coming back into the house, asking the puppy where his Dad was and ignoring his little whimpers as he turned against the garage door and began to scratch against the rusting red paint that Jack promised time and time again he’d get too eventually and she’d chuckled a little and said, ‘ _ That's not the door, baby _ ’ before clicking and attempting to pull him back toward the kitchen door only for the puppy’s cries to get louder, for the scratching to become more persistent and for Ally to look up, finally registering the light streaming through the tall window that hadn’t been on when she’d left earlier that day, to the fan that had been turned off, to the headlights on the beat-up-old van hot against her skin like the studio lights she’d just left. She’d looked up and seen his hands and his jacket and his shirt and she’d seen his neck. 

 

Ally hadn’t screamed like she had then since she took her first breath on this cruel Earth. Both times she’d had tunnel vision carrying her to a place she had no interest in going, both times being born into a life unknown. Falling to the floor she’d screamed and wailed and cried, cursing all that was above her, watching silently, for taking everything from her that They could. She’d howled like a injured animal as, without any control of her own, she’d carried herself to the kitchen phone and called Bobby, her breathy cries down the line enough to get the message across to the man who knew more about how to handle this exact situation than anyone ever should. 

 

It was outside the garage doors once more that she was found, huddled like a baby on the cool concrete, oblivious to the actions of the new arrivals that now surrounded her, the smell of Bobby the only thing permeating her senses in that moment and the warmth of his arms feeling so familiar she had whispered out, ‘Jack?’ in response before promptly falling back to her inconsolable and incoherent weeping. And that was that for at least a week.

 

No one directly told her the events that had occurred subsequent to the arrival of the ambulance, she overheard her Father talking to Wolfie and the other men on occasion, the short grunts and whispers that made out sentences such as,  _ ‘Doctor said it was very likely a long one, didn’t have enough height in the garage, he said _ ’ and ‘ _ had to cover the poor bastard in makeup, was fuckin’ covered in blood spots’  _ which painted an image of her husband that Ally didn’t need to imagine further. Only was all she could, picturing him in different states of disarray, each more painful than the last to the point that in her sleep she would dream of the man telling her off, she could never see his face, could only hear his voice telling her over and over, ‘ _ you’re better off, you’re fine now, you’re better off, you’re fine now _ ’ until the dawn broke and she rose again with the sun. She could never respond in her dreams to the man’s insistence and would wake raring for a fight, would oepn her eyes and roll onto her side expecting to find him lying beside her so she could wake him up with a yell and explain to him in much the same manner that she would  _ never _ be alright without him, only she’d roll to find cold, blank space where the warm body of her husband should be. So she’d go back to sleep, if only to hear his voice again.

 

At his funeral, she’d arrived late and largely dopey from the 6 Valium it had taken for her to get dressed and the final one for her to get into the Escalade. The Priest had smiled sympathetically on seeing her held tightly under her Father’s arm, dressed in the all black he was sure she had no part in picking out. She’d wanted to sit at the back but her Dad had taken her down to the empty two spots waiting for them in the front pew, next to Bobby and in front of Noodles and his wife. The ceremony continued as usual after the glitch of her arrival, the man speaking beautiful words about her husband and all the passion and kindness in his heart, all that had troubled him and the love of his family that would prevail in his death and Bobby had placed his hand around hers in that moment as though it was a comfort and if she wasn’t so uncomfortable maybe it would have been. Her dress seemed to be strangling her and the view of the box directly in front of her which held the man that felt so far removed from the man she agreed to love until the day she died in front of God and a man dressed like Elvis. Noodles hand gripped her shoulder so tight it left marks, she didn't realise until she undressed that evening, so departed from her body all through the day that the man probably could have stuck a knife through her middle and she wouldn’t have noticed until she got in front of her mirror later that day. She felt slightly comforted, even if the marks reminded her of a time before her Mother’s death, that others were feeling a grief so visceral that it seeped from their bodies and onto those around them. Ally didn’t mind baring that pain for those who loved him like she did, without capacity and unconditionally. 

 

Six months after his death, the world still moved, Rez was still working on the same floor of Interscope and would still send her genuine smiles like the very sight of him didn’t turn her vision red, Wolfie still insisted on driving her around even if she was only going to the supermarket for Tampax. Six months after his death, she was approached for a memorial concert, held in a theatre on Broadway that she hadn’t caught the name of. They’d asked her if she could give their blessing to use his songs, only glazing over an ask for her to sing and she’d agreed, to see his face big and strong on a stage once more. When they’d asked her to sing, she had, as gracefully as she could manage, and bowed gracefully when the audience stood to applaud her even though she was blinded by her tears and the overwhelming feeling of not being alone, even with the undeniable otherness that came with the profession that had got her up there in the first place.

 

When she’d arrived back at the little 2 bed, 2 bath that her father  _ refused _ to move out of until the day they carried his cold, dead body out and into the back of an Escalade with the backseats pushed down; she’d fallen right into bed. Wincing a little at the clap on the back her father had given her when they’d come through the door together and slumping her way up the stairs to bed. And that night she dreamed, as she always did, of the man with the deep voice who came back stage at a gay bar to see her without taped on eyebrows (or any eyebrows at all for that matter) speaking to her as if he had any right to do so. Ally expected the same old rhythm that she’d come to expect, only, that night his tune had changed to one far more solemn, from that of a man who regretted what he had lost. He told her she was  _ great  _ that  _ all your hard work has payed off, baby _ and that  _ I miss you dearly _ . Over and over, just like usual. And she’d woken up, raring for a fight, just like usual. Ready to tell him that if he missed her why the  _ fuck _ did he leave her, only when she’d turned, the space on the bed beside her was remarkably cool, the bedding unremarkably unslept in and the sheets smelling just of her expensive shower wash that he had always refused to use because of it's distinctly floral smell, the room nor the bed smelled like tobacco and the strange woody smelling cologne he wore that had no packaging. But that was no surprise, there was nothing strange about the scene she woke up to, however abnormal her dreams were the harsh light of the morning was completely ordinary, as she had come to learn it to be.

 

But that was okay, Ally was okay. Because Jackson would find a way to be  _ there _ . And that was okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m really not sure about this one I changed the end like 100 times idk, this is kind of plotless but like ugh! idk! love it or leave it hope yall dont hate it too much xxxx


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